Henderson, BMI work on deal that will benefit both sides

Greg Harman

Tuesday, May 9, 2000 | 10:57 a.m.

It's a land deal that's been under discussion for about a year: one chunk of land dotted by seven waste-water ponds for one swath of undeveloped land bordering the Henderson Water Reclamation Facility.

Long before the city of Henderson began negotiations to swap land holdings with Basic Management Inc. for a potential state college campus, it was interested in upgrading its waste-water treatment plant.

"This started long before the college was a twinkle in anybody's eye," said Dan Stewart, president and chief executive officer of the Henderson factories' development firm, LandWell.

Henderson officials support the exchange of 80 acres northeast of Pabco and Sunset roads for 92 BMI acres in the same area because it allows the city to upgrade its plant.

BMI, the management group overseeing the World War II-era plants lining Lake Mead Drive, is interested in the exchange because it would expand property that LandWell, a subsidiary of BMI, is considering transforming into Provenance, a master-planned community.

"It's kind of like swapping Boardwalk for Park Place," Stewart said. "It's good for us. It's good for them."

"Basically, we're doing this for two reasons," said John Rinaldi, Henderson's properties manager. "We wanted to expand our waste-water plant on adjoining property. And we also wanted to continue our northern boundary to the fence line."

Tim Smith, waste-water operations supervisor for the reclamation plant, pauses alongside one of the facility's Rapid Infiltration Basins.

The lagoon, a long channel carved in the bare earth with shallow pools of water ringed by vibrant green algae, is soon to be little more than a slice of the plant's history.

"The lagoons are going to go away because the state standards have changed," Smith said.

Beginning in 2003, municipal waste water may no longer be channeled into evaporative ponds. The state health department ruled that recorded nitrogen levels are too high for discharge into the environment.

When the land swap is completed, the city is set to launch a $65 million expansion of the treatment plant that should double its capacity -- from 10 million to 20 million gallons per day.

The Henderson City Council approved a resolution last week supporting the transfer of property and is expected to finalize the exchange at a June 6 council meeting.

But like the anticipated exchange of city lands at Lake Mead and Boulder Highway for the Nevada State College at Henderson, this trade hinges on an all-clear from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.

"We've cleaned the property and sent a preliminary closure request to the state," Stewart said.

A response is expected in the next couple of months, hopefully long before the escrow period of 180 days expires, Stewart said.

Before construction may begin on Provenance, old evaporative ponds used by Titanium Metals Corp. must be cleared of toxic chemicals in a massive earth-moving operation expected to cost as much as $40 million.

The upgrade in waste-water treatment technology is not expected to reduce the flow of water into the nearby bird-viewing preserve or the Las Vegas Wash, Kurt Segler, Henderson's utility services manager, said.

But the water will be cleaner.

"It will clean the phosphorous even better and the ammonia even better," Smith said. At least 1 million gallons of water per day will be released to the preserve.

"We'll make sure we can still feed the birds," Segler said.

Greg Harman covers Henderson and Boulder City for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4418 or by e-mail at harman@lasvegassun.com.